The Culmination
by Covin
Summary: A short story about an infamous person's final moments. (PG-13 for descriptive gore; this is NOT Jesus' crucifixion)


The Culmination

He was pacing, nonstop.  He reached one side of the room and then immediately spun around and continued to the other side.  The time was late, and the realization of the true foulness had swelled and risen inside of him for hours on end, so much to the point that he had gotten desperate and returned the remainder of the blood money that he hadn't yet used.

But that didn't work.  It had only brought a temporary relief.

Now the feeling in the gut of his stomach was rising, growing and spreading as if he had a type of leprosy.  

He was panicked.  His breathing was fast and hard, and the air was humid and heavy.  He had to get out of there, out of the cursed room.  __

"_Stay with me," came the voice again.  An evil whisper that did nothing more than scare him.  "Away from me," he screamed, and ran from his new house that was cursed with whispers and mocking laughs._

He was shaking; and it wasn't just because he was running and out of breath…it was the fear.  The same fear that had been inducing the hours-long adrenaline rush that he was still having.  

"_You can be a legend among my people," the whisper said.  He tripped and fell, rolling and tumbling in the grass.  "__Stay with me," it said again._

He knew who it was but the fact that he had allowed him in before was nearly unimaginable; and it would be inconceivable…had he not already done it.  "NO," he screamed again, getting to his feet and running from the monster and guilt.  He was running from disease itself.  He was running on what was soon to be called the Field of Blood, the pasture beyond his new home.

"_But you've already won this battle.  Why not help win the war?  You would be the leader of my army with everything you've ever dreamed."_

"Away from me," he cried, no longer screaming but begging with tears gushing down his face.  "_No_," the whisper said, "_you must stay with me.  You were wise enough to have done it before, don't be a fool now.  You are—_"

"No-o-o," he sobbed, but the voice didn't stop.  "_—already a hero among my peoples, why not be a **legend."**_

"I want to die," he replied, the salt water of his tears stinging his chapped lips.  "I care not if I—," he was saying but the whisper interrupted, no longer a whisper but the voice of a thousand roaring dragons, "_YOU WILL NOT FORFEIT SO SOON_."

The man fell to his knees, defeated.  The despair was beyond that of what any man before him had ever felt.  He felt the monster in the field, surrounding him like a plague of invisible dark clouds.  He knew in his soul he was doomed, not only condemned by the only one could rebuke, but damned by the owner of Damnation.

He was no longer crying for his eyes were dried and the air stung them.  Shakily he quietly said, "You-u-u've no-o con-t-trol over meeee," and he got and he started running again.  

"_FOOL," the voice screamed into his ears and throughout his head; the power shook the inside of his body and he felt the ground tremble.  The grounds' vibration caused him to trip and fall again, but this time he didn't roll, for a rock had cut him open on his way to the ground and he landed flat on his back, bouncing once._

Pain engulfed him.

The agony of his sins was too much in the first place and now, as he pushed himself up with his arms, he saw his own intestines on the rock and the ground, the blood like a trail to his body.

A strange feeling crossed him and the pain was gone.  He somehow got to his feet and started walking towards the house in which he had hoped to live for the rest of his years.  Somehow, he hadn't run as far as he thought.

The voice again, back to a whisper, "_Yes, do you feel the numbness?  No pain, Iscariot_," it said.  "_Accept me_," it said, seduction and temptation oozing from his voice.  Images flew into his head, images of him being a conqueror, and the hero of black-clad soldiers.

"I've already committed the worst crime," he said numbly.  "_If you believe that, then to join me undyingly would mean nothing."  The man shook his head, he couldn't think; the blood was streaming from his defacement._

He was beginning to see spots and his vision was starting to cloud; or was that just the whisper's anger?  He didn't know but quite suddenly, the pain was back, back with the same magnitude of the cavernous gash in his abdomen.

He bled a trail of blood back toward the house.

"_Okay then, don't join me.  We…I don't need you.  Fool human, you're soul is mine.  Your life is over; you killed him and there's no forgiveness or redemption for you.  You are DEAD."  The voice screamed the last word and the man lost his balance from the invisible force.  He fell onto the door of his dwelling, and it fell open.  He collapsed on the floor, his vision blacking out and then back to normal.  He realized that he hadn't blacked out; he had just closed his eyes…_

He closed and opened them again, and he saw a rope on the floor, a knot already formed in it with a hole large enough for a bucket to go through.  He tilted his head, and the whisper said, "_Yes, it's called a noose…you and your pitiful spirit are mine.  You could have been a general, but now you will be a slave.  I will enjoy torturing you.  You betrayed both sides, Iscariot…"  _

The whisper kept talking, but the man tried to ignore him.  He crawled over to the rope that had the noose already prepared for him.  He enclosed his fingers around and looked around the room to find a staircase that went up to the bell tower of his home; it was a special part of the house he had thought.

As he crawled up the stairs, he began to see golden eyes in the room, in the hallway, in the walls.  Pairs of golden eyes and…he could hear laughter.  Was that laughter?

Yes it was.  It was quiet, but it was growing louder, and the golden eyes were all watching him.  He reached the tower and tied the end opposite of the noose to the bar that held the bell.

He then wrapped the noose around his head and tightened.  No turning back now.

"_You will never see another smile," the whisper said, and all of the sudden the mocking laughter was deafening and the golden eyes were everywhere.  The fear returned and in a quick and sudden motion he pushed himself over the ledge of the staircase; the rope yanked his body and his neck nearly snapped from the backlash._

He wished he would have died then because as he choked and instinctively fought for oxygen, the white wall in front of him began to fade and a beautiful angel appeared before him.  But something was wrong; the angel was astonishing…but instead of the dark-blue eyes that would go with the jet-black hair, there was nothing but a darkness that seemed to have depth.  

It was unexplainable, but he knew whose eyes he was looking into as he felt the life leave his body.  The 'angel' smiled a smile that radiated a hatred beyond anything the man, or any man before him, had ever known.

_"…So he…went away and hanged himself…"_ – Matthew 27:3

_"Then Satan entered Judas, called Iscariot, one of the Twelve…"_ – Luke 22:3

_"With the reward he got for his wickedness, Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out."_ – Acts 1:18


End file.
